Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
The bigger issue though isn't that the west can't supply what they need, the issue is that they dither for months. Take the F16s. They finally now decide that yes Ukraine can have them, but not until after the counteroffensive. Why? The decisions are too slow
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There are a lot of moving parts though:
-they may have feared escalation from Russia if they provided them too soon.
-they may not have been confident that Ukraine was capable of defending the airfields where they'd be located. Because of the ground infrastructure and runway length needed for the F16, they would likely have to be more centralized in a few locations than Ukraine's current planes.
-they might not be confident that it'll make much of a difference. Most of the other "game changing" weapons (e.g. drones, HIMARS, Bradleys, Tanks, etc.) have helped, but haven't really changed the course of the war. F16s (and a lot of US weapons) are designed to operate as an integrated unit based on the assumption of overwhelming power to support them. On their own in a challenging environment like Ukraine, they may not be nearly as effective.
If you go off the assumption that the US wants to do everything in its power to help Ukraine, then yeah, the behavior makes no sense. But that's clearly not the position of the administration. They seem to want to help Ukraine, but absolutely not unconditionally. They're completely unwilling to compromise their own arsenal in any way and they're very cognizant of potential escalation. Basically, they seem to want to bleed Russia as cheaply as possible with no chance of escalation; in that light, their behavior makes sense.